Lady Friday's Virtual Reality Simulator
by DarkPaladin000
Summary: Experiencing mortals is rather hard, so rather than that Lady Friday decides that she will now try a virtual reality game instead. The others come along to play, and a series of accidents happen in which Sunday learns not to gamble, Tuesday wastes his time getting virtual gold, and they all end up locked in the simulation at the mercy of a Nithling.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So yes, it has been a long time since I've written/updated anything at all, and it will unfortunately continue to do so. This was done in small sections over several weeks. I just can't spend as much time writing as I used to, so sorry to those reviewers who have asked me to update various things. So, sorry DaughterOfAthena, for now the others will have to go unupdated. As for this story, again, I don't own the Keys to the Kingdom, and I've made references to various other things which I don't either, but I'm guessing you knew that. Anyway, this is a continuation to the other fanfics in this Morrow Day Special theories like Superior Saturday's Confession Night and such. This one is rather longer than the others, and maybe a bit different in being slightly more serious. **

Friday nearly leaped with joy as she saw that her project had been finished.

For a very long time, Friday had spent centuries feasting on mortal's experiences, but they never last. And the joy from them was never really that tangible, and only left her wanting more and more later on.

So, she searched for other ways to know how mortals felt. In doing so, she ran across a few games the mortals called virtual simulators, and then the idea hit her that she should just make something like that. Yes, she would make a machine that would let her make-believe being a mortal.

But then she hit a snag. The games that she found on Earth weren't very advanced, and didn't really give her any resemblance to reality. Plus, they got boring after some time. For the solution, she turned to a race older than the humans and more technologically advanced, who had perfected the craft.

She then made several changes, for one she made it even more life-like using sorcery and also changed the game so it reflected human culture, since she didn't really care about living the life of some alien.

And finally, why go ahead with something like this alone? She invited the other Morrow Days who very reluctantly agreed to see the seven full-length pods that she had made.

"Are these safe?" Wednesday asked. That was really the question on everyone's minds, since it had been designed by Friday, there was a ninety-nine percent chance it would explode when it had been plugged into a power source.

"Yes, I wasn't the only one who worked on it," Friday said. "I had my sorcerers test it out on themselves first and on several mortal, uh, _volunteers_, so I know they haven't messed with it."

That really wasn't reassuring to any of the other Days, but the thing was that they were all mildly interested in testing the whole thing out. They wanted to play the game, in other words.

"Okay," Sunday said. "But what if, while our brains are playing the game, someone comes in and stabs all of us?"

"Our Keys will protect us," Friday said. "They do that even if we aren't alert, so that isn't a problem. Okay, so now I just need to set this thing up. So, who do you guys want to play as? Like, who are our families supposed to be and stuff?"

"Families are too complicated," Sunday said. "Just make us all orphans."

"Yeah, but what are our life histories going to be?" Friday asked.

"Make it so that we came from an alternate universe," Thursday said. "That seems to be the most simple."

The other Days nodded in agreement.

"Okay, where do you want to play?" Friday asked. "I can do medieval times, magical realm, modern day, Victorian England, prehistoric time, futuristic, space odyssey, and a lot more. Oh, better than that I'll let the machine randomize it and fuse it all together. That should be fun."

They all got into their pods, and Thursday couldn't help but think how this was sort of like the Matrix, which was one of his favorite movies thanks to all the punching and stuff in it.

All of the Days got into the pods, and then put on their helmets. A sorcerous current began humming through the generator all of them were connected to, and then they all felt the world around them black out.

This was common to Friday thanks to her experiencing, but it made the other Days nervous. Seconds later, they all felt themselves standing in the middle of a forest clearing. They were wearing their usual clothing.

"Ooooh," Friday said. "This is nice." She then frowned and a screen popped up. "I wonder what kind of game this is going to be. Do we have hit points or mana points? What about inventories and stuff?"

"So what's the point of this game?" Saturday asked.

"There's no point," Friday said. "We just sort of play it and hang around."

"Okay," Tuesday said while toggling on a small screen that appeared in front of him. "It seems that we've all been given ten thousand drachloons, whatever those are supposed to be and whatever one is worth."

Before they could check out more stuff, a scream rang through the woods.

"What do we do?" Tuesday asked.

"Follow it, I guess?" Friday said.

They all made their way towards where they thought the sound came from to hear a snarl, like one from an animal.

There, they saw something that looked like a wolf, only slightly bigger and a girl cowering in front of the beast. There was a sheep carcass on the ground and blood dripping from the wolf's lips.

Surprisingly, before any of the other Days could act, it was Monday who moved first (several of the Days didn't believe this was possible and were sure that it was a hallucination) and he punched the wolf right on the nose. Angry, the wolf's nostrils flared and turned to Monday.

The Days weren't worried though, for one it was a certain fact that an average person could fight a dog that weighed around thirty kilograms unarmed, and anyway a denizen was much stronger than a human. The wolf turned tail and fled.

The girl looked really surprised. Thursday began flicking through his inventory to see if he had been given a weapon, to find out that he had nothing. He found a sturdy looking branch on the ground though, and decided to pocket it. It was better than nothing.

They all made their way (with Monday glancing back towards the woods now and then) towards what looked like a large medieval-themed town.

"Let's split up," Friday said. "And meet back here at one. That seems like more fun." The other Days would normally never agree with Friday, but she could tell that they all wanted to visit different places.

"Let's be back by one," Wednesday said. "You know, right here."

"How will we know the time?" Monday asked, who had clearly not noticed the giant clock tower behind him.

"There's a clock on your information screen," Friday pointed out. "Not to mention that big clock over there."

While the others spread out though, it seemed that Wednesday and Saturday wanted to stick together. Friday didn't really have anything that she wanted to do, so she decided to tag along with them.

"So, what is there to do here?" Saturday asked. "Do you think they have umbrellas?"

"We could go read manga," Friday said. "Didn't you want that latest version of Nullmetal Alchemist or whatever?"

"Fullmetal Alchemist," Saturday corrected. "And why would there be a manga shop in a medieval town?"

"There's one right there," Wednesday pointed to a building that had a sign on top of it that said: **Ye Olde Manga Shoppe **

"Manga shops didn't exist at this time!" Saturday protested. "There is no way that that can possibly exist. This is not a historically accurate portrayal of human society of this time."

"It is a fusion of stuff, right?" Friday said. "I told you that. I bet they even have an internet café here."

Sure enough, there was a building that said **Ye Olde Internet Café** near them.

They all walked into the manga shop, which was just like a modern manga shop except there was no electricity, and so there were just candles all around. Saturday picked up one of the books, and they were like regular manga except for the fact that the covers were leather bound and the pages weren't made up of modern paper but something that was way more rough.

A middle-aged man walked out to greet them. "Hello there. Is there anything that I can help you with?"

"Are there copies of Fullmetal Alchemist here?" Saturday asked.

"Why yes," the shopkeeper replied. He then produced a bundle of leather-bound copies of Fullmetal Alchemist. Saturday began flipping through them until she found the one she wanted.

"How much for one?" Saturday asked.

"Two thousand, three hundred and fifty drachloons," the shopkeeper replied.

Saturday noted that they were each given ten thousand to begin with, and that seemed like a high price for a book.

"I'll throw in a free clipboard," the shopkeeper added.

Now that caught Saturday's attention. Everyone knew that in modern human society the clipboard was a symbol of authority, kind of like the scepter in ancient times. "Deal," she said.

Wednesday was looking through the stuff but hadn't really found anything that she liked. Friday had the opposite problem and was carrying around way too many things, which Saturday knew they couldn't afford. Once they had slimmed down Friday's selection to two and Wednesday's to zero, they left the store.

"How come you didn't get anything?" Friday asked Wednesday.

"I didn't see anything that I really liked," she replied. "There was this series called Sailor Moon, but it really wasn't about sailors or the sea at all."

"Uh huh," Friday said who wasn't even listening as she flitted through her book. "What d'ya wanna do next?"

"Okay, first of all Friday, stop talking like that," Saturday said. "Secondly, I would like to purchase an umbrella from somewhere."

"Do you think they have an aquarium?" Wednesday perked up. "Or somewhere where we could fish?"

Friday checked up on a map of the town. "It isn't showing a port or anything nearby, or an aquarium. There is a pet shop so that might have some fish."

"But first, an umbrella," Saturday said as she walked into a store. None of the umbrellas were really up to her standards, but she decided to go along with the most expensive one at two thousand drachloons.

They then went over to the pet shop, where the only fish was a goldfish that Wednesday enjoyed making funny faces at for ten minutes. Friday seemed to want to buy half the pet store, so Saturday quickly ushered them out before the owner would make a scene.

They decided to go back to where they had come from and read in peace. Wednesday didn't have anything, so she asked to borrow one of Friday's.

"Okay," Friday said. "But do you think we'll still be able to use the books after reading them?"

"Yes," Saturday said. "Why wouldn't we?"

"I don't know," Friday said. "But there was this game in which books disappeared into a puff of smoke once you read them, so I was wondering if these were something like that too."

"That sounds weird," Wednesday said. "Why would books disappear when you read them?"

"It probably won't happen," Saturday said. "And if it does, well, so what?"

They all read in silence. Saturday was enjoying her book, but Wednesday really didn't like the one that Friday had taken out. It was some odd story about a butler but didn't really make sense, and she was getting fidgety.

"I think I'm going to go get a snack," Wednesday said. She came back ten minutes later with a couple of cups made up of leaves and a large pitcher of orange juice.

"How much did they cost?" Saturday asked as Wednesday poured some into her leaf glass, which was surprisingly sturdy.

"One hundred drachbloons for a month's worth of bread," Wednesday said. "And twenty for the pitcher of orange juice and the glasses."

"Then why was the book so expensive?" Saturday asked.

"This is a medieval period," Friday said. "Printing presses weren't actually that well-developed back then, or at least I think they might not even have had them right now. So I guess it might take some time to make them?"

"And yet they have an Internet café?" Saturday asked.

"It's just a game," Wednesday said. "So I guess it doesn't really have too much logic too it."

The clock tower rang as it was one o' clock. Ten minutes later, none of the other Days had shown up.

"They're running late," Saturday complained.

"Well, we were already here, so of course we're early," Friday said.

"When you've agreed for a meeting, you should reach there ten minutes earlier," Saturday said with a frown. "Monday's probably sleeping somewhere. I am definitely not going to find him."

It was then that Tuesday walked up to them.

"What were you doing?" Wednesday asked.

"Being a goldsmith," Tuesday said. "It was easy enough, and I managed to make over a thousand drachloons easy."

"Typical," Friday said. "Even here all you cared about was making money. So boring."

"Did you see any of the others?" Wednesday asked.

"I haven't seen Monday, but I think I saw Sunday walk into a casino," Tuesday said.

Five minutes later, as they were all sipping a second round of orange juice, Monday walking into the square, carrying someone in his arms. He seemed to be unusually giddy.

"You're not going to believe this," Monday said. "But remember that girl I saved from that wolf back then and there? Well, I met her and I told her how I felt about her the moment I saw her, and she said she felt the same way too, and long story short we're married now."

All of the other Days did a spit-take, including Saturday (which was a first for her). They were all expecting that Monday was going to scream 'April Fools' or something but he didn't for thirty seconds so the shock remained.

"What do you mean you're married?" Saturday asked. "She isn't even real! She's just a collection of pixels."

"Not true," Monday said. "Her name's Celera. See."

"My name is Celera," the lady said. "I love Monday, my husband."

"See?" Monday said as if that cleared up everything.

"Of course she'll say that, she's programmed to!" Saturday said.

Friday decided to check if the whole thing was true, and so saw Monday's profile.

**Name: Monday**

**Class: Morrow Day- One of the Seven Denizens who betrayed the Architect and rule illegally over the House and the Universe.**

**Parents: None**

**Height: 7'8''**

**Weight: 180 lbs**

**Age: Too Old to Calculate**

**Species: Denizen, a creation of the Architect, powerful and extremely hard to kill, though mainly devoid of emotions and creativity.**

**Wife: Celera**

**Children: None**

There was further information, but Friday didn't need to see that. "So it is true," Friday said.

"Why'd you get married?" Tuesday asked. To be honest, he had grown accustomed to Monday's company. They were usually the two losers out of the group, the ones who didn't get any dates and such.

"Like I said," Monday said, "I saw her back there in the woods and immediately felt something, which was why I rushed over and helped her. And then I ran into her again, and found out that she's an orphan too, her parents had been killed by wolves when she was eight, and she flocked sheep ever since then. And now all of her flock's been killed too. It's great isn't it, we can buy a house together and have children and everything."

"You're talking as if I can't make children for you," Tuesday pouted. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday all turned to him and looked oddly at him. "I mean out of Nothing!" Tuesday said.

"Still, this just isn't right," Saturday said.

"What's the problem?" Friday asked. "This is just a game isn't it?"

"What if he gets too attached to her?" Saturday asked. "What then?"

"He won't," Friday said. "And I don't get why you're so angry over this. Unless you wanted to be Monday's wife. Come to think of it, there was this passage in your diary that I remember, talking about someone who had really nice hair but didn't notice you-"

She never got further though as Saturday had begun strangling her. After five minutes once the two of them were separated, Sunday walked in.

The only thing was that he wasn't wearing clothes.

Celera screamed and Monday covered her eyes. Wednesday, Saturday, and Friday all looked away. True, they were Denizens and not humans but this still wasn't normal behavior.

"Why are you naked?" Tuesday asked.

"Well, I walked into the casino and started gambling. I lot all of my ten thousand drachloons, and then the rest of my stuff, and finally my clothes," Sunday said. "And that's that. I am not going to gamble again."

"At least you didn't gamble yourself away," Monday mused.

Once they had all bought Sunday some clothes (Tuesday refused to pay for them so Wednesday did) Thursday came back.

"Where were you?" Tuesday asked.

"I bought a loaf of bread and fed some pigeons," Thursday replied.

The others stared at him blankly. "And?" Sunday added.

"That's it," Thursday said who looked pretty calm. "It was pretty relaxing, no Will, no soldiers, no army to control."

They had all been expecting Thursday to get into a bar brawl and knock out half the patrons and cause lots of damage to the establishment or something, so this was pretty disappointing.

"Bo-ring," Friday said. "You're the head of the most powerful military establishment in the universe, and you go in a game to feed pigeons? I think I'm going to look for a way to change my species. Being a Denizen gets dull. I think I'll become an elf."

Saturday scanned through some information on her screen. "I can't see why you'd bother. Apparently Denizen is the best class in terms of strength, speed, and everything else."

"it's not about being the most powerful," Friday said. "It's about having fun."

"Speaking of fun," Sunday said. "I was looking forward to do some gardening here."

Everyone else groaned. "Come on now, this is a virtual universe, and you still want to do gardening?"

"Yes," Sunday said. "I bet this virtual universe has some unheard of varieties all around it. Of course, I'd need a plot of land, and apparently all of us have gotten one, but I gambled mine away with the rest of my belongings."

Suddenly though, the wind became cold and the sky appeared darker. It became much less light outside and the Days shivered.

"What was that?" Sunday asked.

"It's probably one of the programmed algorithms in the game," Friday said. "You know, actual human games get boring after some time because they become repetitive and you can tell what's going to happen, so what you need to do is increase the number of variables. The problem is that humans haven't gotten the hang of it yet though."

A few drops fell from the sky, and most of the people in town had rushed indoors to the local Internet Café. The place was made up of wood and lighted with candles, which contrasted with the fact that there were several computers in the room. The game had probably tried to make them look old-fashioned by making their exteriors out of wood and the default browser Internet Explorer, but it didn't work out too well.

Friday ran up to the counter and paid for an hour's worth of surfing, seven drachbloons.

"What are you looking at?" Monday asked as all of them pulled out chairs and gathered around behind Friday. Monday and Celera were sharing a stool somehow, which the others still found awkward.

"I wanna know what sort of things they put on their Internet here," Friday said. "I bet this'll give us a great insight into what this place is all about."

Of course, she didn't know any sites to put in, so she just entered news in the search bar. It led to the site of a newspaper called The Daily Bugle which sounded familiar somehow but she couldn't put a finger on what it was exactly.

The headlines were all 'Strange Weather Patterns Continues to Grip the Continent', 'Mysterious Creatures Spotted Near the Ravine', and 'Man Dates Chihuahua for Two Years Before Realizing It Was A Dog'.

"Those are ominous," Thursday said. "Except for the last one, that's just plain weird."

"So there's been weird stuff going on?" Friday asked.

"Yes," Celera replied. It was the only thing she had said since the square and she hadn't really done anything except make doe eyes at Monday, so this surprised the others. "There's been lots of things around that are strange. There are more wolves in the woods now and they attack more often than usual, the river is flowing faster than usual, and yesterday brigands attacked Lady Falmouth's castle to the north of here."

"Weird stuff happening," Saturday repeated. "This is just like an RPG. I say we go and meet this Lady Foulmoth immediately."

"Falmouth," Celera corrected which earned a scowl from Saturday. You just did not correct Superior Saturday, or interrupt her, unless you were Sunday (and she still fought against that).

Sunday waved his hand in order to tell Saturday not to have a fit which she did not appreciate.

"So it is settled then," Thursday said. "We go to this castle and rescue this Lady Falmouth."

Saturday rubbed her hands in anticipation. "Finally, a real task in this place. Since I have the most experience playing these kinds of games, I nominate myself as leader of this mission."

"Not happening," Sunday interjected.

"I think Celera and I will stay here," Monday said.

"We can't split up!" Thursday said.

"Eh, you might as well let him. He'll probably just sleep on the way," Wednesday said.

"But I want to go to," Celera said with a strange gleam in her eye. "I've never been out of town before."

"It'll be too dangerous," Monday said, who seemed to be actually worried about that.

"If something does happen, you can throw yourself in front of her as a shield," Saturday said. "And anyway, she is a computer program."

"That might be true," Friday said. "But the game is designed so that death is permanent. The characters data gets sent to the recycle bin and is eventually destroyed."

"That said we need to go check up on supplies," Saturday said. "The only weapon we have is a stick and we should probably stock up on health and mana potions and look for other-"

"Ain't nobody got time for that!" Friday shouted in the middle of Saturday's monologue and the rest of the Days walked out the door.

Saturday angrily gritted her teeth. That was the second time that day that someone beneath her had interrupted her.

"Wait!" she shouted. "This is not how you play an RPG! Don't you realize that we're probably only characters at level one or something and we need to train or talk around before we rush into dang-"

"Doesn't matter," Sunday said. "We're Morrow Days, we don't need weapons."

And so, all of them set out towards Lady Falmouth's Castle. None of them had a map to the place and it took them an entire half hour to figure out that they could have just asked Celera as to where it was.

Once they had cleared that up, it only took them about ten minutes of walking through forest to become bored. You would have thought that they could have ran, but Sunday wasn't about to sprint through the forest, Saturday thought it was undignified, Friday would've tripped over her heels, and of course Monday was in no mood for running, especially with him walking along with Celera and chatting about things like how grapes were like tiny watermelons.

Just as they approached a clearing, they were greeted by a sudden wail. A person walked out from behind the bushes, bearing a large axe. He was missing several teeth and had an odd assortment of clothes, kind of like a Piper's Child except of course he was grown up.

Without any other words, he charged at Tuesday. To the bandit, he moved with incredible speed and in his head Tuesday was already dead.

Tuesday on the other hand easily sidestepped the bandit and threw him on the ground. The man didn't get up after that.

Two more people ran out of the bushes who were dispatched by Tuesday as well.

"Pah," he said. "Pathetic. These people are even weaker than Slimes. And you said that we needed to train."

In front of them, the Castle's door was locked.

"Hmm," Saturday said. "If this is like any RPG, there's probably a key around somewhere. It might be on one of those guards we took out, or perhaps-"

She got no further as Thursday simply marched up to the door and punched it. The wood was thick, but it began to groan after he gave it a few punches and it ultimately collapsed.

All of them marched behind Thursday. Saturday was left muttering that that wasn't how you played an RPG, and that way too many people had interrupted her today.

There were more of the robbers, but Tuesday literally took out all of them by punching them in the face and complaining about how the game was too easy. The others had to agree. Also, even though they were Denizens, it was slightly hard for them to beat up things that looked like humans.

They eventually made their way to the dining hall, where there seemed to be the greatest concentration of the bandits. There was a young woman tied up in a chair whom they guessed was Lady Falmouth from along with other people which they guessed were servants bound in other places.

The bandits didn't say anything, and that was when Sunday began noticing something. There was something odd about the way these people attacked without speaking, as if they didn't care about self-preservation or winning. It kind of reminded him of… Nithlings.

See, it wouldn't been easy for the brigands to hold the people there as hostages and maybe stand a chance like that, but instead they all charged the Morrow Days at once.

Monday was the first to react and pushed Celera behind where she would be in the least danger. Thursday was next and lunged at five of them, and Tuesday, not to be beaten tackled six. The few of them that went for the others were finished off just as quickly.

A little too soon for Tuesday's liking, there were no more attackers. They untied the hostages and there was the normal 'Thanks and everything' that they expected at this point.

Lady Falmouth told the servants to go back to attend to their duties. She then looked at them oddly, like they were some sort of strange pests.

"Why is she with you?" Lady Falmouth asked, pointing to Celera as if now Celera was some different organism from the others (which she was, but she shouldn't have been able to see it).

"We're married," Monday explained, getting a little defensive.

Celera bit her lip. "Mister Monday, was that truly wise for a Morrow Day to do that?"

Wednesday stopped daydreaming like she had been for a long time. To be honest, she hadn't said anything for so long she was sure that most of them had probably forgotten that she existed, as she could tell by the way some of the others stared at her as if she had just appeared out of Nothing when she said, "How do you know that?"

Lady Falmouth first looked at Celera. "Ask her to wait outside, then we can talk freely."

Monday frowned and was clearly about to protest, but Celera seemed to be able to take a hint, curtisied, and then left.

Once Lady Falmouth was sure that Celera was out of earshot, she said, "Now, Lady Friday, we have some urgent business to discuss."

"How do you know my name?" Friday asked.

"You see, I am a computer program," Lady Falmouth said. "Like the others, but I'm one of the more advanced one created by your sorcerer-technicians which knows of its existence. My function is to oversee parts of the game, which, though you may have attempted to make bug-free, continue to run smoothly. There are others like me, and we attempt to roll over the errors and glitches that occasionally come up within the game to ensure a nice experience for our players. Though of course, we do not want the normal NPCs to know about this, hence why I asked Celera to leave."

"NPC?" Tuesday asked.

"Non-playable character," Saturday said. She rubbed her hands, finally, this was beginning to feel like a real RPG.

"And, to the point," Lady Falmouth said, "a Nithling has found its way into the CPU room. I'm not sure exactly how given my incomplete information on the outside world, but apparently Nithlings can somehow gain access to the Improbable Stair, and one did and found itself in the CPU room. It has also strangely enough found a way to infect the CPU digitally and is affecting the mechanics of the game. It appears your sorcerers overlooked this while designing the game, Lady Friday."

All of the Days except Friday gave extremely relieved looks.

Lady Falmouth frowned. "Why do you all look so relieved at that?"

"Well see," Saturday said, "since Friday had built this and it was working absolutely fine until now, we could only assume that either the House was going to end or something had to go wrong with this. So this means the House isn't ending. Yet."

Friday took a moment to grasp what the meaning of that was and was about to go into a tirade on how insulting it was, but Lady Falmouth interrupted her. This was probably because computer programs really didn't care about being destroyed, even though death in the game meant getting sent to the Recycle Bin from where the data was eventually lost forever.

"The Nithling in question has began spawning several viruses into the system, a few of which were the ruffians that you just helped quell. I am unsure of what this Nithling wants, but based on archived information stored within my unit in this game I am assuming that all it wants is to proliferate, unless it has somehow managed to gain intelligence," Lady Falmouth said.

"Not possible," Thursday said.

"Then I do not know what it wants," Lady Falmouth said. "But as I am a higher program I can sense various things around what you see as this place, and it appears that the Nithling has damaged the link allowing you to exit this simulation."

None of the Days really understood that until Lady Friday, who was sort of used to the jargon having played before figured it out.

"She's saying we can't log out of the game," Friday said.

"Actually," Lady Falmouth said in a know-it-all tone that didn't help endear her to the Days, "I believe that you can log out, just that the server won't be able to reconnect. Based on more information that I have access to, I believe it will leave you much like experiencing Denizens who have taken off their memories before ending."

"So you mean our brains will be locked out forever?" Monday asked.

"Perhaps not," Lady Falmouth said. "As per my records, no one with a Key has ever exited experiencing early, so it may be possible for you to recover if you disconnect. However, there is the other option that involves destroying the Nithling that has taken over."

It was like every stuck-in-a-virtual-reality anime or show Saturday had ever read about, and that in one way made her happy that she was finally going to have a real RPG, but also that she wanted to strangle Friday for putting them in this predicament.

"Where is it?" Friday asked eagerly.

"As far as I can tell, I believe an area thirty miles north of here has been wildly infected. The Nithling has probably set up a center there, and if it is destroyed, that should lead to now problems in logging out of this place," Lady Falmouth said. "Rather than walk all the way over there, I believe that I can manipulate the data in this place to make a portal that should lead you there. I'm afraid that I cannot enter there myself, otherwise my program would be easily corrupted."

She turned around and stared at a corner in the room really hard and an orb suddenly appeared there.

"Before we leave though," Tuesday said, "what about our rewards? Shouldn't we be getting gold or weapons or other gems as thanks for rescuing you?" His eyes turned an odd shade of gold as he thought of riches.

"Grim Tuesday," Lady Falmouth said. "My data apparently says that greed has corrupted you completely, but surely since this gold is virtual and doesn't really exist that shouldn't get to you so much?"

Grim Tuesday blinked and he was back to his own self for now. "Right… it's not even real." But that had never been what he wanted from gold, he rarely even touched or enjoyed the things that he had gotten, he had always simply had a craving just to have them.

"So the machine can't heal all of our defects," Friday said to herself. "Apparently Wednesday and Monday have been partially cured in this world since their defects had to do with their bodies and Thursday since he's no longer suppressing the Will, not their minds completely but the rest of us haven't been that lucky as it seems to be in our heads."

Monday yawned, showing that perhaps his sloth was tied to both his body and mind, but none of the others really worried about that. There was a Nithling to defeat.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So thanks for waiting guys. Otter Seastar, thanks for the review. Also, TypewritingFangirl, why wouldn't you trust Celera? *****grins***** So, this is the second part of this whole series.**

"Well, if we're leaving, I'll be staying behind," Monday said. "I can't go and leave Celera behind."

"Take her with you then," Tuesday said.

"I'm afraid not," Lady Falmouth said. "The viruses would corrupt her program much more easily than mine."

"But we can't split up!" Friday said.

"Sure we can," Sunday said. "And anyway, he'd probably just really slow us down."

"But what if he gets too attached to that simulation?" Saturday asked.

"What do you care?" Friday asked.

"I'm just trying to look out for him!" Saturday said.

"You're not my mom!" Monday retorted.

And so, Monday left to stay with Celera back in town while the rest of them decided to go tackle the virus.

The portal that Lady Falmouth had made was nothing but a huge blue orb, and the moment that each of the Days touched it, they were whisked away.

Once they landed, there was no record or remain of the blue orb. All that was there was clean, blue sky and what looked like an endless plain extending in all directions.

Except of course, for a patch about one mile long and wide, which was completely dead. It was almost comical about how quickly it turned up, as if someone had deliberately sliced away a part of the land and put in something else there.

Sunday felt the soil under his fingers. "This is good farm soil."

The other Days groaned. Even now, Sunday couldn't get his mind off farming. Or gardening. It was a good thing that all of them had made a pact with each other to never let Sunday know of the game known as Farmville, otherwise he would have forced them all to play with him and send him stuff and whatnot, and it was already inconvenient enough with all the other stuff he forced them to put up with.

And so, they had all agreed to keep Farmville a secret from Lord Sunday on pain of exile from the other Days.

Suddenly, there was a noise like an elephant's trumpet, and a few ruffians appeared literally out of thin air and moved to decapitate Lord Sunday.

They were dead before they knew what had hit them.

"Let's go further in," Wednesday said. "If there is a Nithling, it will probably be at the center of the square."

"But we should wait first," Saturday complained. "This is probably the boss level here. So the enemies will be harder-"

"Yeah," Sunday said while rolling his eyes. "Because the enemies up till now have been _so _difficult to deal with."

And so they all marched on towards the center of the square.

They could soon see what looked like a huge spiral tower jutting out of the ground, which seemed to be the source of all the activity. It was also spewing out black clouds, probably causing the strange weather patterns outside.

"This should be easy," Sir Thursday said.

Unfortunately, it was at this point that they would find out that they _had _been overconfident for once.

It wasn't that the enemies were weak. It was just that there were so many of them. Even the best of soldiers can be outnumbered. Not to mention the fact that they were all unarmed. Sir Thursday's stick broke after a while, and for some reason they couldn't pick up the weapons their enemies dropped. Saturday's spells weren't working properly.

That's why she was the first one to fall. A ruffian cut off her head, and then slashed open her heart.

That wouldn't have normally been a problem, but for some reason the axe he had been wielding had been on fire.

One by one, the others as well, fell. [Okay, that rhymed but wasn't meant too.]

Saturday stared at the sky hopelessly as she was defeated. 'I'm going to end up in a comatose state for the rest of time!'

And then there was nothing.

And then, suddenly, there was something again. She was standing in the middle of a forest, and she took a good look around and saw that this was the same forest that they had started the game out in.

Pretty soon, Wednesday came. And then Friday, then Tuesday, then Thursday, and finally Sunday as well.

"What happened?" Sunday asked.

"We died in the game," Friday said.

"Then why wasn't our data deleted?" Saturday asked.

"Oh," Friday said. "That only happens to the other CPUs. If _we_ die we get sent back to our last save point with half our gold and some items, which I guess is this since we never saved…"

Saturday looked ready to strangle her. "Why didn't you tell us this before! I was sure that we were finished!"

"So this means we can keep trying over and over?" Sunday asked.

"Um, not really," Friday said. "We can, but if that Nithling grows too powerful, it will probably replicate itself into the initial programming and could then disable the function for us to respawn. But that shouldn't happen for a… um… while?"

"Whatever," Saturday said. "As I had said before, we need to farm."

Thursday raised an eyebrow. "I thought that was Sunday's thing."

"Not actually farm, video-game farming, which means doing nothing but gathering experience and gold," Saturday retorted. "Which we need to get rid of this Nithling."

Sunday didn't want to agree with Saturday, but he knew that she was at least partially right, so he decided to take all credit for it. "So it seems that now I must order you all, as my soldiers, to wait and gather gold while we prepare our strategy for our next siege."

"Don't talk about it like it was all your idea!" Saturday said. The other Days rolled their eyes.

"By the way, what do we have left?" Friday asked. All of the Days had only half of their gold, and only some had their plots of land left.

"We should try to visit Monday," Wednesday said. "He probably has all of his stuff with him."

They all agreed, and anyway they thought that they would need another Morrow Day to try and successfully take the Nithling this time.

The town looked pretty much the same as it always had. Only thing was that they couldn't see Monday anywhere, and it took an entire half hour for the Lords and Ladies of the Universe to realize that they could have just _asked _someone about it.

Once they did that, they were directed to some part of town they had not been to before, and was nearly unrecognizable now.

There was a huge building, and it was an understatement to say that it was magnificent. It was a huge white mansion, with graceful arches and a grandiose garden with fountains spraying crystal clear water here and there. The central path to the mansion was flanked on both sides by trees bearing cherry blossoms, so that they formed a sort of pink flowery roof over the road. Next to the gate, the words MONDAY MANOR were engraved in what looked like gold.

In short, it was like how any of the Days would have liked a house to be.

Wednesday rang the doorbell, and someone dressed up like Sneezer greeted them and asked them their business.

"We're friends of Monday," Wednesday said.

"I see," the butler said, though he seemed unconvinced. He also glared at the Morrow Days as if he thought they were just random people disturbing someone distinguished.

The Morrow Days obviously didn't like this, or the fact that none of the NPCs in the game seemed to have any sense of self-preservation.

Several minutes later, Mister Monday walked out of the mansion wearing a very flamboyant suit. He saw the rest of the Days and ushered them in.

"What is this place?" Sunday asked.

"Well, once you guys left, I decided to use that plot of land I got. Apparently land is pretty valuable here, and Celera and I discovered some seeds to a rather rare plant, and after seven or eight harvest seasons, we pretty much bought out the entire town," Monday said.

"How long have we been gone?" Thursday asked.

"Not long," Monday said. "A week, I think."

"Plants don't grow that fast!" Sunday said.

"Yeah, but this is a video game, and they only take around six or eight hours to harvest, kind of like Farm-" Monday stopped mid-sentence as the Days besides Sunday threw death glares at him. Monday gulped. He had almost mentioned Farmville to Sunday, something that they had agreed to never do.

Sunday, thankfully, had begun admiring some plants in the garden, so this wasn't a problem.

The inside of the place was surprisingly plain, mainly because Monday hadn't had enough time to decorate.

In the dining room, there was a small boy who looked around four years old. Monday and the other Days sat at the table while another servant poured them orange juice and laid out other refreshments.

The small boy was looking at the Days eagerly. "Papa, who are these people?"

"Oh, they're my friends," Monday said.

It took several seconds for that to sink in.

And then, all six of the Days did a spit-take. All at once. It was a picture worthy moment

"Wait, did he just say papa?" Friday asked. "What is he, French?"

"Who cares about that?" Saturday asked. "Is he really your son?"

"Yes," Monday said. "He's mine and Celera's son."

"But children don't grow up that fast," Tuesday said. "And just how did it happen?"

"It works faster in a game," Monday said. "And it's pretty easy. I can show you guys how it happened."

He called Celera in, who was wearing a gown Lady Friday would have killed for, and Monday approached her.

He then pushed a few buttons on a screen. "Here, it says 'Create Child.'" He pressed it, and a small baby appeared in Celera's arms.

"That's way easier than how it happens in real life," Thursday said.

"Uh-huh," Monday said.

The other Days then filled in Monday on how they had essentially been defeated miserably.

Monday frowned. "I can get us armor and stuff, but it looks like rather than that we can go and form an army. We'll need gold though, and more land to house the soldiers. Not to mention armor."

"Where do the soldiers come from?" Thursday asked.

Monday shrugged. "This is a video game. The soldiers are all generic and stuff."

"So we can grow stuff?" Sunday asked.

"Yeah," Monday said. "And you don't even need to physically do any of it! It's just like Farm-" Monday paused as the other Days gave him death stares. Thankfully, Sunday didn't notice this time either.

And so, the Days started what normal video gamers call farming.

They found it to be quite fun. For fifteen minutes, that is.

After that, they learned a truth about gaming that all gamers learn eventually: farming is not fun when you have to keep doing it. And it makes playing the game seem more like a chore than actual playing.

For one thing, it was downright boring farming. It turns out that they never even got to visit their land (whether it even existed was a question even Friday couldn't answer) or touch their produce. They just put seeds and waited for several hours, during which they did practically nothing.

Thursday wanted to do something a bit more constructive and tried talking to the soldiers they were recruiting, but it turns out that they were generic. True, soldiers in the House were Denizens, and they too were generic, but not in this way. Most of his conversations went like this:

"Hello there recruit," Thursday said. The recruit; who Thursday couldn't tell apart from each other because they ALL looked exactly the same, would salute first. It wasn't any army salute that Thursday had seen, rather the guy would stick out three fingers and move his hand away like he was trying to swat away a fly.

"Salutations, sir," the guy would then say.

"So…" Thursday trailed off. "How are preparations going?"

The recruit would then bombard Thursday with a classic NPC list of things to choose from.

"So, what do you like doing?" Thursday would then say, now being reduced to making small talk.

"I like cheese," would be all that the recruit said.

Yes, apparently all the soldiers liked cheese. Or at least they said so. Even though, on the information screen on them, it said that most of them were lactose intolerant. Thursday sighed, he shouldn't have expected much more from something that Friday had made.

The NPCs around town were similar, though talking to them did help while away the time.

Pretty soon, Monday Manor fell into the usual routine that the House was under. Sunday was taking care of the crops, which essentially meant doing nothing, as well as telling Saturday what to do. She was taking care of preparations to launch their assault, and constantly telling Thursday on how he should go and talk to the soldiers. Wednesday would have been ordering their naval fleet if it wasn't for the fact that they didn't have one and had resigned herself to raising fish on her plot of land. Tuesday was hoarding gold through various measures.

The only ones who were acting out of character were Thursday, who wasn't overseeing the army and was instead relaxing, happy to be away from the Will, and Monday, who was spending more time with his wife and child.

His eldest son, for that matter, had managed to somehow turn fourteen within three weeks. He had pretty much gone completely on his father's unnaturally handsome features, except for his eyes that were a strange mix of Celera's and Monday's.

"You look just like your father," Monday once remarked to his son.

"Of course he does," Celera said dotingly while she kissed him. "After all, Monday's child is fair of face." She then took him away, eyes brimming with motherly affection.

"You know none of this is real, right?" Saturday said. "She's showing a wifely and motherly affection towards you and him because she's a program. She understands that you're her husband and that is her son, and logically, one loves both of them, so she's behaving like that based on those things. There is no real emotion here."

"I beg to differ," Monday said.

Saturday sighed. She had no time to argue, she was currently helping Tuesday balance their accounts to make sure that the army had enough funds.

At this point, I bet you're either tired of the small talk and want the assault to begin, or are wondering what Friday was doing. To be honest, none of the Days knew, and when Monday asked Sunday about Friday being missing for several hours each day, Sunday whispered back, "Shh! Don't jinx it!"

And so, within six weeks they were what they assumed to be ready. They had all given themselves the best level of armor and weapons, generally swords or muskets, though Saturday preferred a sorcerous staff instead.

As they readied to approach the Nithling again, Lady Falmouth, and a few NPCs like her who had survived the Nithling's various attacks, joined them and bolstered their ranks.

And so, they marched towards the place where the Nithling was, with Monday giving a teary farewell to his wife and two children, and they rode for three days until they finally reached their destination.

The Nithling had grown more powerful. The square was now ten miles on each side, and not only that, but there were trenches, forts, traps, bastions, and other things that were certainly not there before.

"Hmm," Saturday said. "The scouts report that there are about nine hundred Nithling soldiers guarding that place, while we have a strength of about one thousand and eight hundred together. That can't be right."

"Why not?" Thursday asked.

"Because," Saturday said, "I have never played a strategic war game in which you actually outnumber the opponent, or any strategic game in which you're stronger than the gboss. The boss is always much stronger than you, and takes a lot of time and strategy to defeat. Or at least, generally, if we're not talking about Pokemon."

"Can he really just keep spawning limitless soldiers though?" Sunday asked. "It seems sort of cheap. There must be a limit to how much he can churn out, or a place we can destroy that will stop them from coming. This is a video game, after all."

"It is normal though, to outnumber your enemies in a siege," Thursday said. "Plus, there are obstacles, though they don't look very smartly placed. I could probably draw us a plan…"

Thursday spent several minutes drawing them an outline on how to approach the center of the place, and how best to go around the areas where there were fewer traps.

Getting to the center was uneventful, the ruffians, as expected, behaved like normal Nithlings and posed little threat as they reached the center.

However, instead of a single tower, what they found this time was an entire fortress.

"Ready the cannons!" Thursday shouted.

"We didn't bring them!" Saturday replied.

The Days had had the foresight to purchase some cannons and gunpowder, but had considered them too bulky to transport all the way over there. Sir Thursday snarled.

"Now what do we do?"

"I'd normally just reset," Saturday said. "But this isn't a video game we can keep saving and resetting on. We can have them ordered back to us, with a message sent to Lady Falmouth." Most of the NPCs like Lady Falmouth were camping a few miles away, fearful of their data being corrupted.

"We're in the middle of enemy territory, and it will take days for them to reach us," Thursday said. "I suppose we'll just have to give our assault without them."

"Then again, this might be good practice for you," Friday said. "After all, what if you have to practice a war against someone with no gunpowder?"

"You're saying that some time in the future I'll fight an army with no gunpowder, no tectonic strategy, and also with very few reinforcements?" Thursday asked with a derisive snort.

"Uhh…." Friday said, as if she wasn't sure what she should say.

"Thankfully, we do have _some _barrels of gunpowder," Wednesday said. "We can make makeshift grenades with them and try to bore a hole in the fortress's wall."

That seemed to be an agreeable strategy for everyone, at least better than trying to scale the walls using ladders or other siege equipment, which would make them vulnerable to enemy soldiers who were probably waiting for them.

After a hole in the wall was promptly made, a new problem began to emerge.

See, one thing that they all had been afraid of was that their own soldiers might become corrupted. That would mean they would either die, or turn against them.

Thing was though, the soldiers in the game were programmed to be very loyal, or so Friday said. They would fight even when clearly outnumbered and outmatched, and in exchange they were all rather generic and dumb, but loyalty was definitely a redeeming factor. Not to mention that their data was stored separate from normal NPCs, which meant that they should have been safe from corruption.

Or at least, that was how the theory went. What they hadn't accounted for was how strong the Nithling was getting.

Some soldiers collapsed, but the bulk of their army was still intact.

"Keep them fighting!" Thursday shouted. "We'll go into the castle and strike at the heart of it. Keep the enemies from crowding around us!"

The hole in the wall, though big, was forming a sort of bottleneck around the area, and also meant that the soldiers who were guarding the fort were busy throwing objects like lighted oil on top of the invaders.

Thursday felt adrenaline running through his blood. This was his proper place, though to be honest, he had always been the one defending the fortress, never before, besides drills, had he been the one trying to take it.

They reached a large wooden door, whose key Saturday found hanging next to it ("Thank the Architect for stupid Nithlings," Saturday said when she saw it.)

As such, they continued, now easily sweeping through the enemies forces with their new weaponry, and with their soldier pawns keeping the bulk of the enemy busy.

"We have to get to the core!" Thursday shouted.

After an hour of running around, they finally chanced upon a room that was the most heavily guarded in the fortress, easily signaling them that this was where they had to go. Their army, by this time, had shrunk to half of its number, but they had no time to worry about that.

A great horde of soldiers awaited them, but they were pushed back. Opening the door to the room was their bigger problem, with Thursday's fists no longer serving them so well against this door, and no key in sight.

"We need a battering ram," Sunday said. "Or another grenade."

"We're almost out of gunpowder," Tuesday said. "And there are no trees here."

Saturday approached the door, and pulled out dozens of pieces of paper. On each of them, she wrote EXPLODE and touched them with her staff.

She backed away, muttered something, and each paper burst into flames with a noise like a firecracker, and there was, later, a hole big enough for one person at a time.

"I was sure you were going to try to find a key," Wednesday said to Saturday. "Or try to look for another route in, you know, to make it feel like an RPG."

"We don't have time for that," Saturday replied.

The room was about as big as an executive elevator in the House, with the center consisting of a large stone which was as black as Nothing.

"The Nithling!" Thursday shouted. "This must be its heart… or core… or whatever."

"What do we do?" Monday asked.

"This is a video game," Saturday said. "We probably just destroy it."

Just then, more ruffians appeared. They were all wearing armor this time, something none of the other soldiers had on up till then, as well as all carrying weapons that were flaming or charged with electricity.

"This wasn't going to be easy," Thursday said. He motioned to the few remaining soldiers left. "Keep these people busy while we destroy the core!"

The soldiers approached the ruffians on his orders, not minding the fact that they were outmatched and clearly all about to die. Thursday glanced at them, and despite the fact that they were computer programs, still felt something for them on their loyalty. He was also glad that according to the game's lore, none of the soldiers had any family. Or parents somehow, though once again, this was a video game, and one made by Friday.

The core didn't make any attempt to move or to stop them, though it did chip away pieces of Nothing. Eventually, a loud sound came and the stone practically imploded on itself, though thankfully none of the Days were caught in it.

Then, instead of the plains loading, they were standing somewhere filled with light. Confetti was raining down on them, and there was a message in front of them: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE NOW DEFEATED THE GAME!

The next thing they knew, they were sitting back in their pods.

Immediately, Saturday got out and started berating Friday for putting all of them in mortal danger, and told her to get rid of the machine at once.

The other Days agreed, except Monday, who seemed to be unhappy at losing Celera. In then end it was decided that Tuesday would send the contraption into the void, and it was decreed that no more virtual reality devices would be made in the House.

And so it ended. Or so they thought.

* * *

Fetchers are normally, once their duty is completed, returned to the Nothing from where they were summoned. But, one in a million Fetchers might someday find itself promoted to a place higher than its normal station.

This Fetcher, which wound itself up to Mister Monday's study, was one such lucky one. He had been a group of sixty, but had been the only one to survive their mission to go to Friday's simulator and download part of its data before Grim Tuesday chucked it into the void.

The Fetcher handed over the disk to Mister Monday, who looked wistfully at it. In here, there was a record of Celera, and his children. And as long as he had it, he could always remake it, or even perhaps bring them to life. After all, if Friday had figured it out, why not he?

Monday waved his Key and pointed it at the Fetcher. "I think you can be an Inspector now."

The Fetcher's clothing changed, though some of his mismatched features remained. No worry, it usually took time for rank change in the House to cause a change in features. Mister Monday decided that this one could have some liberties and do some small stuff jobs.

He looked at the disk. And then he yawned. Yes, he would have to try to bring them to life someday. Someday…

And then he fell asleep.

* * *

While that was a rather serious and weighty matter, in the spirit of this fanfic, we shall end on another note.

Sunday had found his Reaper on his Faceboook account playing Farmville, and had soon became addicted to the game. An edict was soon passed ordering all of the Days to play and send him gifts on it daily.

This did not endear any of the Days to the Reaper, and several of them were hoping that someone would put a hole in his chest the size of a dinner plate one day. He was added to the list of people Saturday hated, almost next to Sunday, and she planned on taking care of him once she reached the Gardens.

Then again, based on what they had done, they sort of deserved it.

**A/N: And that ends it. Sorry it took so long to finish. I wasn't able to early due to being busy, and when I was free, I was suddenly hit with a sort of writer's block and wanted to do almost everything except write.**

**On another note, Pokemon is generally easy (the Elite Four that is) if you're an older player, but the first time I faced them I was barely able to get past the first one. Later I just hoarded revives and used them.**

**Also, Garth Nix mentions, through the Atlas in **_**Mister Monday**_**, that a Fetcher might occasionally find a place in the House, though we never get to see one (and I thought it would be cool about how one would look and stuff once promoted) but sadly he never really built on it. **

**Mister Monday's Wii wasn't really that nice by my standards, so I incorporated some of Mister Monday in this. And sorry to those who thought Celera would be doing something important. **

**Lastly, this finishes the Day's series, and thanks for reading, and please review if you liked. If you liked this sort of humor, you can also check out Punishment Theory, a fanfic on Thursday and his Times along the lines of this. **


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